G.O.P.’s Brightest Stars Not in the Mix as Donald Trump Picks a Running Mate

Donald J. Trump at a campaign event on Monday in Virginia Beach, Va. He has whittled the list of potential running mates to a slim few.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times

For Mitt Romney, Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina was a natural ally — perhaps even an ideal running mate. A young, conservative woman of Indian descent, Ms. Haley endorsed Mr. Romney early in the 2012 race and campaigned alongside him in the run-up to his choice of a vice-presidential candidate.

This year, Ms. Haley is not even in the hunt for a spot on the Republican ticket.

Entirely absent are virtually all of the Republicans who were seen, as recently as a few months ago, as the bright stars of the party: young officeholders who by virtue of their background or political biography, or the states they represented, seemed primed to expand the party’s electoral horizons.

By dismissing much of the party’s next-generation talent — people who would probably have been on the vice-presidential short list for a different nominee, like Jeb Bush — Mr. Trump has reaffirmed his determination to go his own way, ignoring the conventional impulses of the Republican establishment.

It is a mark, too, of Mr. Trump’s extraordinary isolation within the party, even as he is poised to claim its nomination, that there is no clamor among its most popular and diverse young officeholders to enlist one of their own in the race against Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, said Mr. Trump’s short list was notable for the absence of virtually all of the people regarded in Washington as the Republican Party’s most electable figures.

“In their private moments, candidates acknowledge that the pick has a lot to do with who they think could help them win,” said Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican vice-presidential contender in 2008 and 2012. “That’s the traditional analysis, but I’m not sure that will apply in the nontraditional Trump campaign.”

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Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina has not been vetted by the Trump campaign.Credit
Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Mr. Trump has declined to consider a group of up-and-coming Hispanic Republicans, including Govs. Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Susana Martinez of New Mexico, as well as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. People close to all three, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that they were not being vetted for vice president.

He has skipped over leaders who might have delivered a crucial state in the Electoral College: Ohio. Gov. John Kasich and Senator Rob Portman, Ohio politicians with deep experience in Washington, are not under consideration, according to aides. Nor is Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who became a hero to conservatives for his clashes with organized labor.

Mr. Trump has also overlooked prominent Republican women, including Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a foreign policy hawk who is well regarded by national party leaders. Neither she nor Ms. Haley is being vetted.

Rob Godfrey, a spokesman for Ms. Haley, said the governor declared in May that she did not want the job and had not budged. “Since the governor made it clear that she was not interested in serving as anyone’s vice president, there was no reason for her to participate in the vetting process,” he said.

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Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is not under consideration for vice president, and he has not issued his support to Mr. Trump.Credit
Stephen Lam/Reuters

But the mutual estrangement between Mr. Trump and many of the party’s rising leaders is more than a matter of individual job preferences.

Mr. Trump has mainly considered people who can be made to fit his political mold, like Mr. Gingrich and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who have been publicly solicitous of him, as well as Mr. Pence and Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, low-key Midwestern conservatives with little demonstrated appeal to Democratic-leaning groups.

His top criterion, Mr. Trump has said, is someone who can help him navigate the legislative branch. His advisers have been dismissive of suggestions that he seek to broaden his appeal with a female or nonwhite running mate.

Depending on his ultimate choice, Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential selection may put the lie to what had been an article of faith for many Republicans: that the party’s bench was meaningfully deeper heading into 2016 than at any point in recent memory, with an array of diverse personalities and talents that would help Republicans recover from back-to-back electoral thrashings by President Obama.

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The brightest prospects who went up against Mr. Trump in the primaries were soundly defeated. Nearly all of the rest appear to have been sidelined heading into the general election.

Yet there is little sense of chagrin among those excluded from consideration for the vice presidency. Several who would probably have been finalists in another nominee’s vetting process have withheld their support from Mr. Trump, as Ms. Martinez and Mr. Kasich have done; others have given him only grudging or limited support.

For these Republicans, many of whom are popular in their home states and have their own political futures to consider, being asked to join Mr. Trump’s ticket would have forced them to balance the pressures of party loyalty in the near term against the risks of being shackled for many years to the most divisive figure in modern Republican politics.

Already, mainstream Republicans who have aligned themselves with Mr. Trump have suffered by association: Mr. Christie’s dismal poll numbers in New Jersey plunged again after his embrace of Mr. Trump. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, an early vice-presidential prospect who recently withdrew from consideration, suffered through multiple embarrassing television interviews in the spring, when he struggled to defend Mr. Trump’s ideas and readiness for the presidency.

Mr. Kasich, whose state will host the Republican convention next week, has had no such trouble.

His top political adviser, John Weaver, said there had never been any possibility that Mr. Kasich would join forces with Mr. Trump. The governor has opted instead to defend his own brand of Republicanism, and has leveled pointed criticism at Mr. Trump since the last round of contested primaries in the spring.

“We made sure there were no expectations back in May,” Mr. Weaver said. “No avenue. No way. Not happening. Forget about it.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2016, on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: G.O.P.’s Stars Not in Mix as Trump Picks No. 2. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe